Economy

Chris Matthews Wednesday actually asked Ron Reagan, "Did [your father] really believe if you lowered the tax rates the government made more money?" Frankly, I'm not sure which was more absurd - the question or the answer (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Just barely a year after it derided the establishment media's obsession over oil-affected birds in the Gulf of Mexico while virtually ignoring the loss human life in awful floods in Tennessee (noted at the time at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), Investors Business Daily's editorialists are calling out the press for oversaturating us with Obama-OBL victory lap coverage at the expense of informing…

Discussing how President Obama should craft his 2012 reelection campaign theme, MSNBC contributors Howard Fineman offered that President Obama made a "mistake" in his freshman year in office in saying voters should judge his term by his performance in office. Because the economy is recovering under Obama's stewardship, Fineman posited on the May 11 edition of "Hardball," Obama must run on a…

Here's a safe prediction: The "bipartisan" group of congressmen led by Vice President Joe Biden will fail to solve the $14 trillion debt crisis. Here's another prediction: The Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org/) has developed a formula, made possible by a grant from The Peterson Foundation (www.pgpf.org/), that could balance the budget in 10 years, reduce the debt to 30 percent of gross…

Last November, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell admitted on air to being a socialist. In a segment on "The Last Word" Tuesday addressing how Cuba - a country nearing economic ruin - is moving towards capitalism, O'Donnell said, "We are all socialists in this country who support public education, state funded universities, government-run hospitals, Medicare, Social Security, classic socialistic…

Connecticut Governor Daniel Malloy has called himself the "anti-Christie" because of his willingness to raise taxes to help balance the Nutmeg State's budget. By contrast, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the object of Malloy's scorn, recently ruled out tax increases, as he has been doing ever since he became governor in 2010. Malloy's recently passed taxes amounting to an estimated $1.4…

According to a USA Today analysis, Americans are paying a lower percentage of income tax rates now than in the 1970s-1990s – and CNN's Jack Cafferty used this fact Monday to ask if raising taxes should be the first priority in Congress's deficit reduction plan. He hinted that the Treasury could use the extra revenue from higher taxes. Then on Tuesday, CNN Anchor Carol Costello continued the…

As if more proof were needed about the minimum wage's devastating effects, yet another study has reached the same conclusion. Last week, two labor economists, Professors William Even (Miami University of Ohio) and David Macpherson (Trinity University), released a study for the Washington, D.C.-based Employment Policies Institute titled "Unequal Harm: Racial Disparities in the Employment…

The Washington Examiner reports that it's been 768 days since the Democratic-controlled Senate passed a budget. What's the big deal? It's not like the nation is facing financial difficulties or anything. I realize it's convenient for President Obama to pretend he's a bystander on fiscal matters when it suits him and to pass the buck that never stops with him back to Congress, but how about a…

Sunday evening (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I predicted that the press will ignore the likelihood, based on the Congressional Budget Office's most recent Monthly Budget Review, that officially reported federal spending will top $1 trillion for the first time during a three-month period (i.e., for February through April 2010) when the Tim Geithner's gang issues its Monthly Treasury Statement…

There are times when I watch MSNBC and truly can't understand how a major American television news network could possibly have assembled such a group of ignoramuses to act as commentators. Take for example Lawrence O'Donnell who on Monday's "The Last Word" actually said, "The Founding Fathers would have understood [raising the debt ceiling] would be imperative to maintain the credit rating of…

What would you say was the best week in American history? If you're a man named Chris Matthews who gets a thrill up his leg for Barack Obama, you would say the week in which Osama bin Laden was killed by a Navy SEAL team in Pakistan (video follows with transcript and commentary):

If CNN's Roland Martin gives the same answer as a tea party conservative, you know you've asked him a pretty bizarre question. On Monday's 10 a.m. EDT news hour, CNN anchor Carol Costello asked the panel if Obama is now "unbeatable" due to the killing of Osama bin Laden, falling gas prices, and a positive May jobs report. Of course, the election is over one year away, not all of the possible…

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman Monday wrote another in a series of factually dishonest pieces about budget deficits and what he likes to call 'the Great Recession." In his "The Unwisdom of Elites," the unabashed liberal made numerous falsehoods and omissions to blame our current economic and budget woes exclusively on George W. Bush and "small groups of influential people":